Spicy Smoked Sausage Pasta

I have a lot of catching up to do on recipes!! This recipe I pulled from Kevin and Amanda's blog who got this recipe from the cookbook, The Best Simple Recipes! Smoked sausage is one of those things I love to eat, but often forget exists when I'm at the grocery store! This is an absolutely delightful, hearty dish that we had no problems polishing off in just a couple of days! Let's get started...

Ingredients

1 TB olive oil

1 lb. smoked sausage

1.5 c diced onion

2 cloves garlic-minced

2 c chicken broth

1 (10 oz) can Rotel

1/2 c heavy cream

8 oz. Penne Pasta

1/2 tsp. salt & pepper 

1 c Mont Jack shredded cheese

1/3 c thin sliced green onion

To begin, you're going to want to add your olive oil to your pan over medium/high heat! You're going to want the oil to get hot enough it's smoking before you add the sliced smoked sausage and diced onion. 

Cook these two together until slightly browned, which should take about 4-6 minutes! Add in the 2 garlic cloves, and saute about 30 seconds, or until fragrant! 

Add the chicken broth, tomatoes, heavy cream, pasta, salt and pepper and stir together!

Bring this all to boil and cover leaving the heat on medium/low and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the pasta is tender!

Stir in 1/2 of a cup of the shredded cheese and mix together well! Top it off with the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese and sliced green onion, and place under the broiler for a just a few minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and getting brown!

Ready for the broiler

Out of the broiler!

All finished and ready to eat :)

This recipe was absolutely wonderful since it's been so cold outside, it helped warm us up! I did sprinkle a little dash or two of red pepper flakes in there to spice it up a little more! 

Stay tuned for another recipe from a friend of mine!

Until then...

 

Ham and Squash Soup

I guess it's time to play catch up on all the recipes I did make last week! This ham and squash soup is a gem we found on Pinterest! Paula Deen's recipes make me so happy!! You can find her original recipe on her site PaulaDeen.com! It's easy to put together and I love all the different textures and flavors in the soup itself! Let's get cookin'!

Ingredients

2 pounds yellow squash-sliced into rounds 

(Note: I quartered my slices)

6 TB butter

1 large onion-chopped

4 carrots, sliced

1 can evaporated milk

1/2 c sour cream

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 c white cheddar cheese-grated

1 1/2 c vegetable stock

2 c cooked ham

To start out you're going to melt the butter (buttah-Paul Deen lol) in a soup pot on the stove! Add the onions, carrots, squash, and a dash of salt and pepper. Saute all this together for about 20 minutes. 

Add the evaporated milk and sour cream to the vegetable mixture, and stir well! Simmer this mixture until you start to see bubbles, and then stir in the nutmeg, cheese, ham and vegetable stock! 

Warm the entire mixture through, and serve! 

I couldn't get enough of this soup, it was so delicious! I was worried about the leftovers and the squash getting to soggy, but to my surprise it held up well to finish off the next day! 

Stay tuned for a very enticing snack that I can't make enough of!! 

Until next time...

Cheese Soup is one of my favorites!

For as long as I can remember my mom making cheese soup, it has been one of my favorite meals!   I decided to make it for us last night after looking through some more recipes in my new cookbook from my mom! In my hurried, excited state I completely forgot to get bread bowls, however it is on the list of things to do today (for leftovers). This recipe came from one of my mom's friends, Faye and I cannot thank her enough for sharing this recipe! Let's get started!

Ingredients

3 carrots grated

3 stalks of celery, chopped

1 small onion finely chopped

1/2 stick of butter

2 large can of chicken broth (roughly 32 oz)

2 can of cream of potato soup

1 pound Velveeta cheese, torn into small pieces

In a large pot, heat the half stick of butter, and saute the carrots, celery and onion for about 2-3 minutes. Add the chicken broth to the pot and simmer for 30 minutes! 

I love buying these matchstick carrots, because I'm not a carrot fan and D won't go through a whole package of carrots alone, so these are perfect for snacking and cooking! They are pretty long though, so I would recommend dicing them a little bit before you through them in!

3 stalks of celery

This is 32 oz of chicken broth. I used all of it by the time it was all said and done. I would recommend starting out with 3/4 of the box and adding more as needed!

After the broth and vegetables have simmered, add in the 2 cans of cream of potato soup and the pound of Velveeta cheese! Keep stirring frequently until all the cheese has melted over LOW heat (the cheese will burn over high heat, so keep that spoon moving)! Once you have everything melted and stirred in, spoon into a bread bowl and serve! Did I mention this recipe is ridiculously easy?! Stay tuned for some other great recipes! Until then...

~Happy Eating~

(cheese picture (top) courtesy of wegmans.com)

Homemade Sloppy Joes

Well, we did it again! Watching the Pioneer Woman make some homemade sloppy joes for her family made us realize that it's just as easy to make it her way as it is to dump the can in the pot and add extra ingredients! The only thing I wasn't adding pretty much was the ketchup and Worcestershire sauce! So we made her homemade version, and it was just as easy and equally delicious!

Before we get started on this recipe though, I'll give you an update on reading The Alchemist! It's a wonderful book so far! My favorite quote from the book thus far is, "We do not realize that love is just a further impetus, not something that will will prevent us going forward. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey" (Paulo Coelho).  What a beautiful truth! This makes me think of one of my best friend who is packing up her family to move 10 hours away to follow her husbands goals with his job! That's the kind of love that is real. No questions, no worries, you just go and be supportive and make the best of every opportunity because each new place and each new obstacle is a part of your life together and a new road on your journey! I love all the adventures I've had so far with DJ, and the future and all the adventures we have yet to have, and it could not be more exciting to think about.  I think you know it's real, when you can express to each other that the road, the journey and all the bumps and cracks on the way are YOURS to experience TOGETHER. I love that he reminds me of this in one way or another every single day! Just the short reading I've done so far, has made me very aware of this! Do I have your interest yet about the book?? Okay, good! Now let's get started on the sloppy joes!

Ingredients
We used less ingredients because we are only feeding two of us :)
1 lb ground beef (we used venison)
1 TB butter
Onion, chopped (she used half of an onion, I just eyeballed it until we had all we wanted)
That's the fun part of tweaking recipes to fit your family, you can add as many ingredients as you want, based on your own taste buds!
Green Pepper, chopped (small green pepper, we used the whole thing)
Garlic cloves, minced (we used about 2 1/2 larger cloves, she used 5)
1 1/2 cup of ketchup
A little less than a full cup of water
2 TB brown sugar
2 tsp chili powder (more if you want more of a kick)
1 tsp dry mustard
Red Pepper Flakes (add as few or as many as you want for a little spiciness)
Worcestershire sauce to taste
Salt and pepper

To start off, you're going to cook your beef (or venison) in the butter in a large skillet! Once it's browned drain of excess grease! While your meat is cooking, start chopping the onion, peppers, and garlic!

The garlic on the top and bottom on the right side were TINY, that's why it looks like there is so much garlic there! I wouldn't have cared if they were larger, I love garlic!

One small green pepper chopped

Once the meat is brown and drained, you're going to add ALL the ingredients (chopped onion, garlic, pepper, ketchup, Worcestershire, red pepper flakes, dry mustard, brown sugar, chili powder, water, salt and pepper). Turn your heat down to medium/high and simmer everything together. If it doesn't look right, you can add more of whatever you think you're missing. We ended up adding more ketchup to give it the typical "red sloppy joe sauce" look. 

Here it is before it was all mixed together, and then after it was all mixed and simmering

Once everything is warmed through, you can it scoop it on the bread of your choice (we just used regular hamburger buns) and enjoy!! It was really delicious and truly just as easy as using the pre-made store bought mix! I guess for us anyway, because I always add extra fresh ingredients to the can! 

Until next time...

~Happy Eating~

Watching TV results in cooking!

Over the New Year holiday weekend, we've been traveling, hunting (DJ got another doe--Woo Hoo), seeing old friends and trying to take it easy! When I get the chance to grab the remote (hunting shows are on most of the time), I turn on Food Network, and I've been having a mini Pioneer Woman marathon! It's fun to watch as she cooks meals for her family and all the cowboys, especially when I run across an episode where she cooks things I have pinned to my Pinterest boards! DJ was sitting here watching an episode with me, where she cooks her spicy soda pulled pork and immediately decided we had to make it for ourselves! Of course, we had make a much smaller portion, but luckily Wal-mart had a "picnic" sized pork butt roast (I know the name of the cut is just pure awesome)! With that being said, let's get started on her spicy Dr. Pepper shredded pork!

Ingredients
1 large whole onion (we used a small/medium onion)
1 whole Pork shoulder (Pork Butt) (we used the picnic size (much smaller))
Salt and Pepper
1 can (11 oz) Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (we used a little less than a 7 oz can)
2 cans of Dr. Pepper (we didn't have any Dr. Pepper so we used Cherry Pepsi)
2 TBS brown sugar

To start this out you're going to cut your onion into quarters (cut in half, then cut the halves in half).

Now you're going to peel apart the layers of the onion and place them in the bottom of the crock pot. (We used a crock pot instead of the oven because over the holidays, I went off and left my oven pots with lids at my parents house). Now, you're going to salt and pepper the pork and then place on top of the onions! Next you're going to add the chipotle peppers, 2 cans of soda and brown sugar! The peppers will make your pork very spicy! Use more or less, depending on how spicy you want it! We like spicy, and used a little more than half of our 7 oz can and it was perfect!! Once everything is in the pot, you can either place it in the oven at 300 degrees for 6 hours, or you can set your slow cooker to low and set a timer for 6 hours (we probably cooked it on high the last 2 hours, and kept ours cooking for almost 8 hours). Be sure to remember to flip the roast every so often, during the 6 hours so it will cook evenly. Once ours had cooked for 6 hours, I went ahead and took it out, shredded it and then placed it back in for another hour and half or so. You will be able to tell, when you try and pick it up and all just starts falling apart!

Here it is all ready for the lid and let the waiting begin!

Looks yummy!

We topped off our plates with Idahoan Southwest mashed potatoes!

They have a little bit of a kick to them, 

and we even put a little bit on our sandwiches! FANTASTIC

This recipe was easy and delicious, and the exact right amount of spicy and sweet! We made pulled pork sandwiches last night, and plan on having pulled pork with shredded cheese tacos this afternoon! It was a great way to finish off a wonderful day! I hope my next recipe of her's to try is one of her breakfast ideas! Check back soon to see what is cooking in our kitchen next! 

Until then...

~Happy Eating~